I’ll admit it – Khaleesi is a cool name. For Games of Thrones fans, it conjures up images of the doe-eyed Dothraki queen played by Emilia Clarke. But to the rest of the world, it just seems a bit odd.

In fact, Khaleesi is a made-up word in the fictitious Dothraki language meaning wife of the khal (warlord). So it’s a title, not a name. But that hasn’t stopped 15 sets of parents in Queensland, six in New South Wales, four in Victoria and four in South Australia from naming their daughters Khaleesi since the beginning of last year.

Other TV and movie character names that have seen a recent surge in popularity include Isabella (the 10th most popular girls’ name in Australia last year) and Jacob (13th most popular boys’ name) from the Twilight series. And according to Nameberry, Americans are going nuts for Katniss (The Hunger Games) and even Django (Django Unchained)! They’re the 10th most popular girls’ name and fourth most popular boys’ name respectively on the baby-naming website so far this year.

What happens after the 15 minutes of fame?

If you’re a regular reader of my baby-names columns, it probably won’t surprise you to hear I think it’s a bad idea to go with an uber-trendy, off-the-wall moniker. Hey, I love Katniss and Khaleesi – my husband and I even joked about naming our daughter one or the other. But the reality is that the show will end and the baby will be stuck with a pop-culture-victim appellation for the rest of its life. Do you really want to be the parents who named their child after a two-bit character on a flash-in-the-pan TV show?

Granted, my parents may have been partly inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s character in the movie Sabrina when naming me, but Sabrina ain’t no Katniss or Khaleesi! Especially not in my native Canada, where it’s much more common than in Australia. My point is this: if you’re going to give your kid a fictional character’s name, it’s probably best to stick to one that’s at least part of a real human language.